Hunger Games
by OceanTiger13
Summary: Jim gets picked for the Hunger Games. Jim/Bones, teenagers.


**Hunger Games**

A/N: Same old same old: I don't own _Star Trek_ or _The Hunger _Games, but the fic is mine. For those of you who don't know, _The Hunger Games_ is a novel set in Panem—a nation composed of twelve "districts" in post-apocalyptic North America. Every year, each district is forced to choose two teenagers between the ages of twelve and eighteen, to participate in the Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

Summary: Jim and Bones are teenagers in one of the districts. Jim gets picked to participate in the Hunger Games. They say goodbye. Jim POV.

* * *

My heart pounds as I sit on the plush, velvet couch in the waiting room, my hand shaking and my mind numb.

_I've been chosen._

I try to think about survival. About winning the games. About what will happen if—_when_ I return.

But I can't.

Somewhere, deep down inside me, there's an awful voice that says I don't have a chance. That says there's no way I can compete with the kids from the other districts. Kids bigger and stronger than I am. Kids who know a hundred ways to kill you with their bare hands.

It says that this is the no-win scenario.

I jump as the door to the waiting room slides open and Bones walks in, his face pale, his eyes full of tears.

"Don't cry," I say immediately, knowing that if he loses it, I will too.

For a moment he looks like he won't be able to do what I ask, but then he takes a deep, shuddering breath and blinks the tears away, and collapses on the couch beside me.

Bones's fingers are twitching wildly against the soft velvet, a nervous habit he picked up from years of tapping out piano tunes he heard on Old Ace Miller's radio. Not that he's ever been given the opportunity to learn how to play. Not that any of us have.

"How long?" he asks in a voice barely above a whisper.

"Ten minutes," I say, quietly.

His shoulders slump in despair.

"You have it all, though," I tell him, in an attempt at optimism. "It's not like anyone else'll come to visit me."

This is true. My stepbrother, Sam, ran off when I was ten—probably got himself executed as a traitor to the country. My parents are both dead, my father having died in a mining accident, trying to make sure the other miners got out, and my mother, of disease. And my stepfather, Frank, well…I rid myself of him years ago. I have no other family or friends.

Bones seems to struggle with himself for a moment before he speaks again, his voice choking, "They—they can't do this!" he manages to splutter, "You're only sixteen for cryin' out loud! You had—you had—two years l-left…"

"Don't cry," I repeat, and my voice sounds harsh.

He takes another breath and lets it out slowly. "It should be me," he says, quietly. "It should be me."

"_No_," I snap at him. I don't want to sound cruel, but the only alternative is to break down, which I can't afford to do.

"I'm older," he protests, "I've got more experience than you—"

"You've got a year on me, Bones," I say, bluntly.

"I can fight just as well as you—"

"We both know you can't fight worth a damn and I can," I snarl, "Besides, you've only got a year of this left. You have a better chance of getting out alive."

"But—but—" he stutters, "but…they can't do this!"

"They just did."

His fingers twitch faster than ever. He hasn't yet made the offer I'm expecting him to make—the offer of escape. There's a part of me that wants him to, that wants to burst out of the tiny room and run for my life. And then there's that awful voice that knows we would never make it, and I would only get him killed along with me. That part of me prays he won't make the offer, because if he does, I might just take it.

He's silent for a moment, staring at the opposite wall, horrorstruck.

Then he turns and looks at me, looks me in the face with his sweet, brown, puppy-dog eyes.

I feel my throat tighten and I breathe in, trying to suppress the tide of emotion rising inside me.

Bones, on the other hand, does no such thing.

Without a word, he flings his arms around my neck and presses his lips against mine, hard, and I know he doesn't want to let me go.

As cold as I'm trying to be, I have to relent and kiss him back, wrapping my arms around his waist and pulling him closer toward me.

I can't deny him this kiss goodbye, even though I know it'll torture me later.

I make the best of it, losing myself in the memory of our first kiss. It was very much the same situation we're in now—me broken, after a beating courtesy of my stepfather, and him trying to heal me.

Only I'm not broken yet. And either way, he can't heal me. Not now.

The kiss ends and the peacekeepers come, pulling us apart.

There are no passionate declarations, no pleading, no struggle.

We both go quietly.

At the door, he stops and turns to face me, his eyes wet and brimming again. "Don't die," he says. "Don't die."

I nod and answer, "I won't."

It's a promise I can't keep, but I lie to him anyways. I love him, after all.

Then the door swings shut, and he's gone.

I'm led away to the cars that'll take me and the other tribute to the train station, which will then take us to the Capitol.

And it's only after I'm locked away from the cameras and reporters that I allow my tears to flow.

FIN


End file.
